


Catalyst

by hooksandheroics



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, but i'm putting this in the tags just so you know, maybe you don't have to worry, some gore but seeing as i'm not really mentally equipped with writing graphic gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn does not stop shooting. Not until one of them is down. Not until one name is being shouted into the air.</p>
<p>"Bellamy!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> As I said, I am definitely a big 'the other is injured' trope, so here's another one.

He does not stop shooting.

Finn does not stop shooting until he was aiming at them, until he’s turned around to face them, his gun blindly spewing bullets and smoke, he does not stop until the person in front of Clarke is falling to his knees.

The next thing she knows, the world is slowing down, there are heavy thumps of footsteps she vaguely recognizes as her own, and her heart thumping wildly in her chest as a myriad of voices call out one name.

“Bellamy!”

She falls to her knees beside his steady form, across from her is Octavia, her eyes watering from unshed tears. _No._ Clarke pulls at his arm to lay him on his back, and for a moment there her heart must have stopped beating when she finds his eyes shut. She only breathes when they open and focus on her, his gaze too unsteady, his breathing too erratic – he opens his mouth and then closes it as he holds a violent cough. She spots the blossoming red stain on his shirt, just off to the side.

_Shit. This is dangerous._

Clarke presses a hand to his side, and he hisses in pain, but his face is strangely slack and paling with every second. She keeps a set pressure on the wound, willing desperately for her mind to work, work, _work_ because this is so not the right time to lag.

Her brain starts working again when another person rushes to their side (she recognizes Murphy’s voice). “Okay, okay, Bellamy, just – just breathe. We’re gonna get you to the Ark – just hold on okay?”

“No!” he bellows, and it seems like it has taken all his remaining energy to utter that one syllable. He splutters and wheezes, Octavia holding his shoulders to support him, but he sits up and rests his back against the nearest tree, and closes his eyes. He puts an arm around his torso, his hand pressing against the one she has on his wound. “I’d be dead weight – you’d get there faster without me –

“And what?” Octavia exclaims, disbelief in her eyes. “Leave you here? Are you insane?”

“You’ll bleed out here!” Clarke interjects, surprising even herself with the strength of her tone. “We’ll – improvise something – a stretcher –

“Clarke, he’s right.”

She turns towards the source of that dreadful suggestion, her eyes blazing and angry. She gets angrier when she finds that it’s Finn, her chest constricting painfully until her eyes sting with tears. “You! Stay out of this!”

She watches as Finn stumble back a good feet away, the force of her words proving to be physical as much as emotional, and she would have cared for that hurt look on his face but there’s a more pressing matter at hand and she can’t deal with the feeling in her chest for him right now. So she sends him a glare and orders him to gather bamboo shoots and string them up as fast he can.

She is now acutely aware of the amount of blood gushing from his side, aware of the heat of his body, the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the _lack_ of fight (which she would have been grateful for, if it weren’t for these reasons), and Octavia brushing back the hair sticking to his forehead and looking more like a little girl than all the other times she’s seen her.

His gaze travels to her, and in one second, it clicks to her just how desperately she needed him to _not_ die. And then another second to realize that the reason she needed him not to die is more than because they make a good team. Even more than because people listen to him.

Funny, she thinks ironically, when the moment it just falls into place is the same moment it seemingly is slipping through her fingers like sand.

* * *

 

They don’t make it to the Ark.

He’s right, they’re moving slowly with all of them on all the handles of the makeshift stretcher, moving as quickly as they can without jostling him much. And that’s not as quickly as they all wish it’d be. When they heard noises from afar, somewhere in the forest, they all decided it would not be safe going through the forest when they’re all tired and insufficiently armed.

They maneuver through the dark woods and back to the dropship where some of their old supplies might have survived.

So now, she’s watching Bellamy lying on his back on one of the platforms of the dropship as he bites down on a broken hilt, the quick and ragged breathing and the quiet groaning giving away the amount of pain he’s in. His hand is gripping Octavia’s and she can see how painfully with the grimace on her face.

“Okay,” she says in a shaky exhale, the trembling of her fingers around a heated dagger betraying her strong-willed façade. “Okay, we need to keep quiet or the-they will find us, is that okay with you?”

He pins her with his gaze, the fire in them undoubtedly the strongest she has ever seen in anyone, nods, and mumbles something about ‘having no choice’ around the hilt in between his teeth.

The process was quick and easy, but it is the longest fifteen minutes of Clarke’s life. His strangled screams are the loudest sounds she’s ever heard, and when the worst is over, the way his body fell and relaxed on the elevated platform made her feel the phrase ‘skip a heartbeat’ for the first time.

It’s only when the dark has completely fallen and only when just a slight fever is running through him that she feels herself relax.

She leans on the wall behind her. Finn and Murphy are on watch until sunrise, Octavia is dozing off beside her brother, and she’s done for the night. And for the longest time, she lets exhaustion take her under a sleep where she dreams only of loud voices and gunshots.

* * *

 

She wakes up and it’s still dark, the simple torch in the middle of the dropship the only source of light, so when she looks to check on Bellamy, she doesn’t realize he’s also awake until his mouth is moving to curve up in a weak smile.

She notices that they’re alone, so she asks, naturally. “Where’s Octavia?”

“She said she’d get some water down the stream with Murphy,” he croaks out and tries to get up. She rushes immediately to his side and her speed is both astounding and embarrassing because he’s already propped himself up on the cold steel wall behind him and hissing in pain, with just her hand on his bare shoulder.

“How are you feeling?” she asks when he’s positioned himself more conveniently.

“Like shit,” he replies honestly, scoffing at himself. “You?”

She blinks at him in dazed realization.

She has figured out just a few hours ago that she has real genuine feelings towards Bellamy Blake, that’s not a thing she’s going to lie to herself about, but it’s also a thing she’s going to keep to herself until the time is right. (She doesn’t think there will ever be a _right time_ , and she doesn’t particularly hope for one either). She doesn’t – couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when, or how, for that matter, but it’s there and it’s insistent and his near-death experience might have been the catalyst.

Those are the things she was sure about.

But right now, even having lost a tremendous amount of blood, with a flesh wound still critical at his side, and a fever running through him, he still wants to find out if she’s doing okay. And this is not the first time he’s asked her that in a similar situation, but this is the first time she sees its true purpose.

It would not take a rocket scientist to figure out what it meant. And maybe not saying it out loud in her head would make it go away and quiet down, but not acknowledging that he has the same feelings for her would just make it worse in the near future.

But she knows Bellamy Blake – knows him like the back of her hand because they are uncannily similar, so she knows that he’s thinking the same. Right now, that’s the important thing. So she gives him a smile, and nods.

“I’m okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave a comment. :)


End file.
